Phifer v. Diehl

The following order was passed per Curiam. The court having concluded, upon reasons to be stated more at length in an opinion to be hereafter filed, that the Constitution, article 16, required that at least 2,500 signatures be obtained from county voters before June 1st, 1937, to the petition for a referendum, in addition to the signatures obtained from Baltimore City, and it being admitted by the appellants in their answer that fewer than 2,500 had been obtained from the counties by that date, it follows that there was a failure of compliance, which rendered the petition nugatory and prevents a referendum on it, that the writ of injunction against it should issue on the establishment of such a deficiency, and the demurrer to the bill for the injunction was properly overruled. It is therefore ordered that the order of the lower court appealed from be and it is hereby affirmed with costs. Urner, J., delivered the opinion of the Court.

By chapter 306 of the Acts of 1937 provisions were made for regulating the practice of dentistry in Maryland. The Act was intended to become operative on the first day of June, 1937. Prior to that date a petition for a referendum on the measure was filed with the Secretary of State. If adequate under the Referendum Article of the Maryland Constitution, the petition would have validly suspended the operation of the Dentistry Act for thirty days, and, if duly supplemented by June 30th in conformity with the Constitution, would have required ³⁶⁶ the submission of the Act to the voters of the State at the election of 1938.

But certain dentists, who are also taxpayers, brought this equity- suit to restrain the proposed referendum on the ground that the petition invoking it was defective -and invalid. The original defendants in the suit were the Secretary of State and the Board of Election Supervisors of Baltimore City. Subsequently a dentist who had promoted the referendum petition was allowed to intervene as a defendant, and he is the sole appellant from an order which overruled his demurrer to the bill of complaint. Article 16 of the Constitution of Maryland includes the following provisions: “Sec. 3 (a).

The referendum petition against an Act or part of an Act passed by the General Assembly, shall be sufficient if signed by ten thousand qualified voters of the State of Maryland, of whom not more than half shall be residents of Baltimore City, or of any one County provided that any Public Local Law for any one County or the City of Baltimore, shall be referred by the Secretary of State only to the people of said County or City of Baltimore, upon a referendum petition of ten per cent, of the qualified voters of said County or City of Baltimore as the case may be, calculated upon the whole number of votes cast therein respectively for Governor at the last preceding Gubernatorial election. “(b). If more than one-half, but less than the full number of signatures required to complete any referendum petition against any law passed by the General Assembly, be filed with the Secretary of State before the first day of June, the time for the law to take effect, and for filing the remainder of signatures to complete the petition shall be extended to the thirtieth day of the same month, with like effect.” The referendum petition filed before June 1st, 1937, "in relation to the Dentistry Act, purported to be signed by 7,366 voters of Baltimore City, and by 1,767 voters in várious counties of the State. After June 1st, and